


The Incident

by GhoulsOnMyBike



Series: Modern Athelnar [3]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 13:57:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4837814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhoulsOnMyBike/pseuds/GhoulsOnMyBike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>toxixpumpkin's good kid/troublemaker au prompt: Accidentally knocked you out when you got caught in the middle of a fist fight between me and this other kid during school. So I sat with you in the nurses office. Shut up! Punks like me have consciences too you know!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Incident

**Author's Note:**

> Written in kind of a rush. Unbeta'd. You can follow me on tumblr at alionheartedhobbit.tumblr.com

Really, Athelstan should pay more attention when he walks. Even though he isn’t typically accident prone, it was poor decision making on his part to go walking through the halls of his high school with his nose buried in a book. If he had been looking, maybe he would have noticed the fight and possibly taken a detour to his next class. Instead, he walked right into it. He didn’t bother to look up until someone had shouted and by then it was too late. He never saw the punch coming.

In his seventeen years of life, not once had Athelstan ever been punched in the face. He’d avoided all physical altercations by simply keeping his head down. He had a small group of friends, but for the most part he stuck to himself. So, waking up after being rendered completely unconscious by a blow was a new experience for him. A very unpleasant one.

The first thing Athelstan became aware of was a wave of nausea. His stomach turned and his head swam, he felt like he was falling.

“Hey, kid, you awake?”

The voice sound muffled and distant like when you’re sitting at the bottom of the pool and hear voices from above the surface. Athelstan groaned.

“Good. At least we know you’re not dead.”

A slight smile pulls at Athelstan’s lips, he certainly hopes death doesn’t hurt this much. He opens his eyes, squinting against the bright light above him. “What ‘appened?”

The person next to him clears their throat and then comes the sound of movement. An ice pack, wrapped in cloth and blissfully cool, is pressed gently to his forehead. It eases the pounding in his head slightly. A face comes into view for just a moment, brilliant blue eyes filled with worry look down on him. Athelstan closes his eyes, tired suddenly.

“What happened?” He repeats the question, more clearly this time. Even as he asks though, the memories flood back all at once.

“I…uh – well, I sort of punched you in the face.” Nervous laughter, “I’m sorry about that. Really. You’re in the nurse’s office.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in and, when they did, Athelstan’s eyes flew open. He turned, ignoring the dizzying sensation of the world spinning around him. There, in the chair beside the bed, was Ragnar Lothbrok. Athelstan knew who he was, everyone did.

Ragnar was the kind of kid no one wanted to mess with. He was intelligent, extremely so, holding the top spot in all of his classes. He played sports; a titan on the football field and proud captain of the school’s swimming team. All in all, Ragnar Lothbrok had the potential to be the ‘golden boy’ of Kattegat High - except he couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble. The pranks he pulled on his friends, and occasionally a teacher, were the stuff of legend. It was said that he loved to fight, that he was always eager to get someone else’s blood on his knuckles, but Athelstan was sure that that was an exaggeration. He’s heard a lot of threats thrown Ragnar’s way, but they never seemed to be followed up on unless Ragnar was confronted directly.

It’s strange seeing the kid that almost everyone in the school seems to fear appear so – afraid, almost; afraid of what Athelstan will think of him.

“Do you always punch complete strangers in the face?” Athelstan grinned, surprised to find that he wanted to offer some sort of comfort to Ragnar.  

The nurse popped her head between the curtain before Ragnar could answer, smiling to find Athelstan awake, “I see you’ve rejoined the world of the living, Mr. Lindisfarne. Your mother is on her way to pick you up now. I’ll run and get you an ice pack.”

There is an awkward tension in the air between the two students as they wait for the nurse to return.

Athelstan is very aware of the fact that his mother will overreact; she’ll demand names, want to hunt down the ‘scoundrel’ who hurt her ‘poor baby’. She will hush Athelstan’s groans of embarrassments and ask why he didn’t tell her that he was having problems at school, sighing when he informs her that it was just an accident. It will be embarrassing. She’ll, of course, be ranting about it for days and he’ll brother will tease him for far longer than that. He can hear their laughing voices already, and his sister will scoff and roll her eyes and inform him that if he would just put the book down occasionally, thing like this wouldn’t happen – as if this was a common occurrence in the Lindisfarne household.

Beside him, Ragnar clears his throat again, “Look, I’m really sorry. By the time I realized you’d stepped in the way, I couldn’t stop myself.”

Athelstan nods, “I wasn’t looking where I was going. I’m okay though, now at least, so you don’t have to keep apologizing.”

The two are interrupted once more by the nurse, a kindly old woman with a friendly face. She has a small paper cup of water and an ice pack, he accepts both gratefully. “Now, just sip that water. Any nausea? Dizziness?”

“No, not really. When I first woke up, yeah, but it’s mostly gone away now.”

The nurse hums her acknowledgment, “Your mother is going to take you to the emergency room when you leave here. I think you’ll be fine in no time but it never hurts to have a second opinion. I dare say, Mr. Lothbrok looked like quite the knight carrying you in here.”

And then she left. As if she didn’t just inform Athelstan that he’d been carried damsel-in-distress style through the halls. How many people would have seen that? Was he going to find out someone had taken a video when it goes viral? The panic is only momentary though, instead it is replaced by a sense of acceptance. Nothing could be done about it now.

“A knight, eh?” Athelstan looks over at Ragnar’s blushing face and laughs, “Ragnar Lothbrok, knight in shining armor. How can I ever repay you?”

“It’s the least I could do. I mean – I am the one who punched you, after all.”

“You’re right. You should definitely make it up to me.”

“How?” Ragnar asks, suddenly seeming a lot less nervous. The smirk on his face certainly implied that he had a few ideas of his own.


End file.
